


The Old Master

by Dydomio



Category: Persona 2, Persona 4, Persona Series
Genre: Comedy, Crack Treated Seriously, F/M, Humor, No Spoilers, Older Characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-08
Updated: 2020-08-08
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:48:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25779190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dydomio/pseuds/Dydomio
Summary: Yosuke and a reluctant Yu travel to Okina City again for another shot at scoring motorcycle dates. Not long after they arrive, though, they run into someone who’s been at this game far longer than them…
Relationships: Lisa Silverman/Suou Tatsuya
Comments: 3
Kudos: 26





	The Old Master

**Author's Note:**

> Rated Teen for some profanity. Mixed elements of Innocent Sin and Eternal Punishment canon, willfully ignorant of the endings of both. Tatsuya and Lisa are the ages they'd canonically be when P4 takes place (30 and 29, respectively).
> 
> This was a drabble idea that got way, WAY out of hand, but I had a lot of fun writing it, and I hope it's just as fun to read!

It was warm, clear, and brilliantly sunny when the boys arrived at Okina Station. The height of summer was upon them, and right now Okina City seemed to be reveling in it; there were people everywhere they looked, entering and exiting the station, looking curiously at store windows, strolling and chatting, or simply basking in the summer sun, taking in the rays, the breeze, and the sounds of the city come alive. Yes, today was the perfect day to be in the city – and the perfect day for the revival of the “up close and personal” plan.  
  
“Alright, partner! You ready for take two?” Yosuke said, swinging around in the seat of his parked motorcycle to face Yu. It was his idea, of course; while Yu pretty much never wanted to see this place again after the previous trip’s misfortunes, Yosuke wasn’t ready to let one, or two, or a baker’s dozen failures get the better of them and their master plan. Though his bike (and nearly Yu’s face) had been crushed the month prior, after just a few weeks Yosuke had risen from the ashes like some sort of shaggy, overenthusiastic phoenix, ready to give it all another go. His eyes shone with as much mischievous determination as they had the first time he’d cooked up this scheme, and looking into them now, Yu just couldn’t find it in him to turn him down. Removing his helmet and hanging it on the handlebar of his own motorcycle, he gave his friend a weary nod.  
  
“Now that’s what I like to see!” Yosuke said, flashing a lopsided smile back at Yu. “Sure, maybe last time didn’t turn out so well, but how can we call ourselves men if we give up over little hang-ups like that? New day. New girls. New us. …New bike!” he exclaimed cheerfully, giving his fresh-out-of-the-shop scooter a hearty thump on the side. “And now that we don’t have _him_ around to make a joke out of us, I’d say our chances just went up a hundred percent.”

Ah yes – Kanji. Yosuke had somehow convinced himself that last trip’s failures were all their first-year friend’s fault, and he’d made _very_ sure that word of this second trip never reached his ears. Ironically, Yu thought, Kanji probably had the best chances of the three of them, with his cool looks and tough-guy attitude – though he had to agree with Yosuke, Kanji’s city bicycle didn’t quite give off the _mysterious, manly biker_ vibe they were going for.  
  
“But first, we oughta think up a game plan,” Yosuke said, looking Yu squarely and fiercely in the eyes. Oh, he was very serious about making things go right this time – maybe a bit too serious. But Yosuke willingly using his head was always a welcome thing, so Yu gave him another affirmative nod. “Right.”  
  
“We know for sure now that sitting around and waiting isn’t gonna cut it. We’re so cool it just scares all the ladies off,” Yosuke said smugly, jerking his thumb towards his chest. Right. Sure. “But we _also_ know that splitting up and chasing them down doesn’t work either. Making it into a competition divides our attention too much! So here’s what I propose to you, partner – instead of splitting up, we _team_ up. We find a group of ladies and take ‘em on together!” He looked expectantly at Yu, smiling brilliantly at his own genius.  
  
Yu looked straight at him and gave him the best “you’re gonna have to elaborate” stare he could muster.  
  
“Look, we’re partners, right? We’ve always had each other’s backs, no matter what kind of crap that TV world or King Moron or Hanako-san or whoever else threw at us! Anything we do… we can do it better together. So if the two of us team up for something like this, there’s no way we can screw it up again!”  
  
Yu couldn’t help but crack a smile. Yosuke’s declaration of brohood was a bit over-the-top for the situation at hand; he was making it sound like they were about to go in for the fight of their lives. Their friendship made them stronger, that was for sure, but it also meant they knew each other like the backs of their hands – and Yu knew for certain that what Yosuke really meant was “Give me a hand, buddy, I don’t think I can do this on my own.” But just as he’d said, they were partners, and it was a partner’s job to back up his other half – even if it was just for something like picking up chicks.  
  
“Sounds good to me,” Yu replied simply. “Where do we start?”  
  
“First, we survey the scene.” Yosuke leaned over his bike, half-standing, half-kneeling on the seat with one arm thrown over the handlebars. He had the eyes of a hunter as he scanned the storefronts, searching for, presumably, the girls they had the best chances with; Yu, quite frankly, had no idea what he was looking for, so he figured he’d just sit back and let the “master” do his thing.  
  
After a few moments of staring and “hmmm”-ing to himself, Yosuke suddenly straightened up and pointed towards 30 frame. “Look, Yu. See those girls over there?”  
  
Yu followed Yosuke’s finger. He’d honed in on two women standing just outside the movie theater, looking up at the board of current features and chatting excitedly. Both were dressed in shorts and colorful t-shirts, one with a boyish crop and the other wearing her long black hair in a messy bun, red-rimmed sunglasses perched atop her head. They looked about his and Yosuke’s age, he thought, perhaps a bit older, and they were certainly pretty.  
  
Yosuke slid back down into his seat and turned to face Yu. “The only reason two girls would go see a movie by themselves is ‘cause they don’t have boyfriends to do it with them! So here’s _our_ chance to fix that,” he said, a devilish grin on his face. “We walk up to them, cool and handsome as we are, and we ask them what they’re here to see. And when they tell us, we go, ‘Oh, hey, that’s crazy! We’re just about to watch that too! Why don’t we all go in together?’ We treat ‘em, of course. We’re nice guys.”  
  
Yu just blinked. Spending a few hours at the theater wasn’t exactly part of their plan, but more importantly, neither was spending money – a ticket wasn’t cheap around here, and since he’d had to strongarm Yosuke into even buying his own _gas_ for the trip today, he had a pretty good idea of who’d be footing the bill here. But before he could say anything, Yosuke carried on - “I know, I know, we weren’t planning on a movie in the first place, but dude, this is _perfect_. You see this stuff on TV all the time – the movies are the best place to put the moves on a girl! You know that thing where you wait for a real quiet moment, then you do that fake yawn and put your arm around her? And she just snuggles right up to you!? _That’s_ what I’m talking about!” Sure, you saw it on TV, but how often did it actually wor- “AND! Here’s the best part – once it’s over, we offer to drive them home _on our motorcycles_! The up close and personal plan, dude, it all comes back to us! It’s FOOLPROOF!”  
  
Yosuke was practically yelling at this point, but by some stroke of luck they were far enough from the crowds that no one seemed to have noticed him. He was glowing with excitement, and he looked as proud of his plan as if it'd just won him the Nobel Prize in schmoozing. Yu noticed that none of it really seemed to account for being told “no” – but that was par for the course with Yosuke, and he knew from experience that there was no use trying to talk reason into him when he got this fired up. At the very least, he thought, if it did work out, a couple hours in a dark theater might not be so bad – he was already starting to get a little hot in the midday sun. And if it didn’t, well… Yosuke would think up a new master plan faster than Yu could say “Jack Frost.”  
  
Yosuke hopped off of his bike and extended a hand to Yu with a wink. “Well? Whaddya say… partner?”  
  
Yu looked up at him, and after heaving an internal sigh, took his friend’s hand and let him pull him out of his seat. “Alright, you’re the boss here.” Yosuke immediately perked up, but before he could say anything back, Yu quickly interjected, “But you’re paying half.”  
  
It seemed he’d hit the nail on the head, because Yosuke took a step back in surprise. “P-psh, what? Of course I am, man! What made you think I was gonna have _you_ do it all? Ha, haha… heh…” he said nervously, clearly flustered that Yu had seen right through him… as if it wasn’t something he tried to pull every time they went out together. He collected himself quickly, though, and smoothly added “Hey, look, we can worry about that later – we gotta hurry and catch them before they go in. C’mon, let’s go!”  
  
Yosuke took hold of Yu’s upper arm and made to pull him towards the theater, but before they’d even stepped out of their parking space, a thunderous roar stopped them dead in their tracks. It drowned out the hustle and bustle of the station in an instant, and a number of startled citygoers dropped what they were doing to see where all the noise was coming from. Yu and Yosuke followed their stares, and there, rounding the corner at the end of the street, was a biker riding a massive black motorcycle – and they seemed to be coming in… awfully hot…  
  
Yosuke still had a firm hold on Yu’s arm, and his grip tightened almost to crushing as the motorized behemoth sped down the street towards them. He had tensed and pulled back a little, as if readying himself to make a break for it but still turning it over in his mind. Surely this guy wasn’t just going to beeline through the parking lot and flatten them – but he showed no signs of slowing down, and at this point, that thing was _way_ too close for comfort. Yu tried his best to elbow his friend towards the sidewalk. “Yosuke, let’s-”  
  
And in that moment, the rider hit his brakes and banked a wide turn towards them, his colossal bike swinging around at what seemed like an impossible angle, just feet from their own parked motorcycles. He came to a hard stop some twenty feet away, righting the bike as he did so and leaving himself, inexplicably, perfectly aligned in a parking space. It was a stunt straight out of a movie – but having it done so close to him Yu felt he could’ve _touched_ the rider was something he never wanted to happen again.  
  
With his motorcycle now stationary and both of his feet on the ground, the biker cut his engine, and its mighty roar died down as suddenly as it had begun. The streets were silent for just an instant; at first no one seemed to know what to say about this mystery rider’s unexpected grand entrance, but soon enough the sound of conversation rose once more into the summer air.  
  
“Who do you think that is, driving around like that? Oh god – it’s not one of those gangsters that were just on the news, is it!?”  
  
“I’ve never seen a bike that big in my life. No way that beast is street legal.”  
  
“That’s one way to make an entrance, I guess. But… it was actually kinda cool, wasn’t it, hehe?”  
  
“What the hell’s this guy’s problem!?” Yosuke half-yelled at Yu, adding his own voice to the commotion. “Pulling a stunt like that, was he trying to kill us!?” Yu couldn’t even begin to think up an answer for him; it felt like his brain was still vibrating.  
  
Wholly unconcerned by any of the stares or murmurs being pointed at him, the biker smoothly dismounted his ride and pulled the wide collar of his jacket closer to his neck. Now that he wasn’t tearing ass down the street towards them, Yu could get a good look at the man. He cut a striking figure, there was no mistaking that; he looked just shy of six feet tall, lean and with perfectly straight posture, and he was dressed head to toe in eye-catching red leather, a striking contrast against the smart black and chrome of his bike. The machine itself dwarfed Yu and Yosuke’s scooters, and in both size and splendor it was nothing like Yu had ever seen before; it had a vintage Western styling, exuding ferocity and elegance in equal measure, and every inch of it commanded respect. _This_ was the real man’s motorcycle that Yosuke had been dreaming of, ever since he’d first asked Yu to get their licenses together. Yu didn’t even want to think about how much it had cost the guy.  
  
Yu still blankly looking on, the man undid his helmet’s chin strap, gripped it firmly by the sides, and pulled it over his head. Down came a cascade of dark auburn hair, accented everywhere by natural red highlights that shone attractively in the sunlight. It was long for a man, down nearly to his shoulders, and smooth though disheveled a bit from the helmet; he passed his helmet off to one gloved hand and went over his hair with the other, tucking all the wayward strands back into place – though it still seemed to stick up a bit around his neck. Slowly he looked each way down the sidewalk, taking a step forward and leaning out so as to see past the various poles and planters lining the curb. Yu watched as consternation crossed his face; he squinted harder and gave the street another look, but evidently whoever or _whatever_ it was he wanted was nowhere to be found. He leaned back on his motorcycle with a sigh, hooking his helmet on the end of his handlebar, then folded his arms and closed his eyes gently, tipping his head down to keep just a bit of the sun out of his face. It was all a series of simple, inconsequential gestures, but everything the man did carried so much cool machismo that even Yu couldn’t tear his eyes off him. He was everything Yu and Yosuke wanted to be. He was _perfect_.  
  
And it looked like Yu hadn’t been the only one to think that, because after just a moment of hushed whispering between themselves, the two girls Yosuke’d had his eyes on bounded right over to the biker.  
  
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, wha- what the _hell_ is this!?” Yosuke said hoarsely, trying in vain to keep the volume down as furious disbelief crept into his voice. He threw Yu’s arm down unceremoniously, putting one hand to his forehead and raking it through his hair. The look on his face was one of indescribable shock – nearly as bad as when he’d lost his bike to Hanako-chan a few short weeks ago. “This dude comes through and almost runs us over acting like he’s hot shit, and then he just – he just TAKES our girls!?”  
  
Well, that was certainly what it looked like – although, Yu noticed, the man didn’t seem to be all that happy about his new company. While the women were coyly chatting him up, smiles on their faces as they looked both him and his bike up and down, he seemed to have stiffened up significantly, looking down at them with a cool but guarded expression and occasionally mumbling a word or two in response. You’d have thought he’d be used to attention like that, what with his extravagant looks and the tough-guy vibe he gave off, but if anything he seemed… nervous.  
  
Yosuke, on the other hand, had quite the fire lit under him. “No, no, no, no, _no_ – we did NOT come all the way back here just to go home empty-handed _AGAIN_!” He seemed to ponder for a second, and like lightning a look of hard-eyed determination flashed across his face. He whipped around to face Yu and grabbed him hard by the shoulders - just as the blood had started to come back to his poor strangled arm. His brown eyes burned with a resolve that was almost frightening.  
  
“Yu. We have to run him off.”  
  
Yu didn’t even stop to think about his response this time. “ _What_?”  
  
“We gotta teach him a lesson! This guy thinks he can just waltz onto OUR turf and take OUR girls? We _can’t_ let that slide, dude! It’s our honor. As _men_.”  
  
Yu threw a glance at the man out of the corner of his eye. Six foot. Muscular. Had just pulled the tightest U-turn he’d ever seen on a bike that probably weighed a thousand pounds.  
  
“Absolutely not.”  
  
“Wh- what do you mean, _‘absolutely not’_?” Yosuke looked like he’d never been more betrayed in his life.  
  
“I mean I want us to go home today on our bikes, not in a _hearse_.”  
  
Yosuke pulled his face back in surprise. “No way you’re telling me you’re _scared_ of this dude. What can some pretty boy with a big bike do to us that’s worse than fighting a Shadow? We do things a hundred times deadlier than this every other week!”  
  
“In the TV world! _With our Personas_!” Yu said, his voice rising in exasperation. Why was it that any semblance of a brain cell Yosuke had came flying right out of him whenever girls were involved?  
  
“So what? It’s not about what kind of supernatural power we have or don’t have, it’s about having the heart to stick up for each other when we’re in danger! What about all that stuff I said about partners, huh!?”  
  
Yes, it was his responsibility as Yosuke’s partner to always have his back; they’d agreed on that. But it was also his responsibility to tell him when he was getting into some stupid bullshit, and this was _definitely_ one of those times.  
  
“Being partners doesn’t mean we should go around looking for trouble we don’t need! Yosuke, look,” he said, trying to stare some sense into his friend, “why don’t we just leave the guy alone, walk a few blocks, and start over? Look at all the people here – we’re bound to find _someone_ no matter where we look. That way we still have a shot _and_ we can get out of it without having our faces punched in.”  
  
“You want us to just run away!?” Yosuke said, appalled that Yu would even suggest such a thing. “To just – _give up_? We do that, and we lose any right we have to call ourselves men! Yu, this is the perfect opportunity to prove ourselves – we chase the prick off for good, we get to keep this place as ours, _and_ we look great to the chicks! Throwing all of that away just because you’re scared is something a coward would do – and I _know_ our Leader isn’t a coward.”  
  
Yu exhaled sharply in frustration. They might lose the right to call themselves _anything_ if they went and did what Yosuke was suggesting. Yu may have been an easygoing guy, but he was _not_ about to let them get beaten to a pulp all because Yosuke wanted to show off. That little quip his friend had thrown in at the end had unexpectedly struck a nerve, though. Yu? A coward, for not letting Yosuke offer himself up as a punching bag? It was just a stupid jibe made in a stupid argument, but for some reason he couldn’t place, something inside him started to burn.  
  
“Come on. Together,” Yosuke said, both his tone and his expression softening in response to Yu’s sudden lack of protests.  
  
Yu took a moment to let the hotness in his chest subside. How Yosuke had managed to twist such a non-issue into a dramatic test of their friendship was absolutely beyond him – he knew his friend was the Magician, but the tricks he pulled sometimes could make any mortal illusionist’s head spin. Yosuke was hell-bent on putting the biker in his supposed place, and while Yu could clearly sense the desperation driving him, it didn’t mean he was going to let him throw himself at the guy. But Yosuke had brought up something interesting, now that he thought about it – Yu _was_ the Leader, and that meant _he_ called the shots. If gung-ho decisiveness was what Yosuke so wanted in a leader, maybe Yu would let him have his way, just a little – but he’d also make sure he had his own.  
  
Taking a deep breath, Yu looked Yosuke plainly in the eyes and said, “Fine, you win. Together. But all we’re going to do is _talk_ to him. If things start to get out of hand, we _leave_. Are we clear?”  
  
Yosuke seemed to think about it for a moment, a thoughtful expression taking over his face. Yu mentally braced himself for another indignant response, but was pleasantly surprised when his friend replied, “Alright, man. If that’s what it takes to get you on board, I’ll take it. Let this silver tongue do the talking, and you just stand there and give him that death stare of yours – we’ll have him running home with his tail between his legs in no time!”  
  
Yu heaved a sigh and forced a tired smile. “Got it.” Of all the days to leave Kanji behind…  
  
“Then let’s go show him who’s boss,” Yosuke said, releasing his friend’s shoulders. Yu suspected he would have a colorful assortment of fingertip-sized bruises when he got home today. Yosuke strode over to the where the biker and his miniature entourage were waiting, walking with an exaggerated swagger that evoked constipation more than confidence. Yu simply followed him a few feet behind and to his side, murky uncertainty pricking at his mind. What exactly was Yosuke planning to say? How would the stranger react? Maybe he wasn’t the “murder-in-broad-daylight” type, especially not with all these people around, but… Yu started mentally planning the best escape routes anyway.  
  
Yosuke stopped when there were just a couple yards between the two parties, crossing his arms and tilting his chin up in his best attempt at intimidation. Yu just hooked his thumbs in his waistband and looked on with that inscrutable poker face he was so known for.  
  
“Hey, buddy!” Yosuke called out, perhaps a little too loudly. At once all three heads turned towards him, the girls with doe-eyed looks of surprise and the man wearing a strained expression that read all too clearly as _“Great, what now?”  
  
_The biker looked quickly over Yosuke. Heightwise, the two couldn’t have more than a couple inches between them, but Yosuke still looked so tiny next to the man and his motorcycle – even Yu, who was more or less eye level with him, couldn’t help but feel like he was shrinking now that they were face-to-face. And then, just for a second, the man locked eyes with him.  
  
In that brief moment their eyes met, Yu felt something indescribable stir – no, _resonate_ – within him. It was a strange feeling, impossible to put into words but mysteriously not unfamiliar, that blossomed in the deepest part of his mind and spread slowly throughout it like ripples on the surface of water. It was not unlike, he realized, the sensation he felt when Izanagi spoke to him in the TV world – mystical, numbing, but soothing all the same, the strongest parts of his own consciousness collecting to encourage him, give him wisdom that seemed otherworldly but stemmed ultimately from his heart and will alone. Yes, that was it – it was as if another Persona was trying to reach out for him. But this one’s voice had another quality, something he could feel clearly but fell just short of _understanding_. Wistful. Elegiac.  
  
But that didn’t make any sense. This was the real world. He and Yosuke couldn’t even contact their _own_ Personas outside of the TV - if they could, Yosuke probably would’ve had Jiraiya send the guy on a one-way air trip to the Pacific by this point. So why was he feeling this way? Just where was it all coming from? And seriously, who _was_ this guy?  
  
But Yu wouldn’t be getting any answers to his questions, it seemed, for the man soon after fixed his gaze back on Yosuke, and the bizarre feeling dissipated as quickly as it had begun. Perhaps it was Yu’s addled mind playing tricks on him, but it almost looked as if he too had felt that brief connection – as if, for but one instant, a flash of recognition had lit up those bottomless red-brown eyes.  
  
“Can… I help you?” he said coolly to Yosuke, in a voice so deep Yu could almost feel it in his chest.  
  
“Yeah. You, me, and my partner here have got some _business_ to settle,” Yosuke said, meeting the man’s piercing stare without hesitation. He broke it only to flash a mischievous smile at the two girls, who were looking on in half interest, half confusion: “Hey, ladies – you just step back and let the masters do their thing. We’ll take care of this guy.” They exchanged questioning glances, appearing to silently debate whether or not sticking around for this nonsense was worth it, then gave a “why not” sort of shrug and took up position against the single-chain fence separating the sidewalk from the parking lot.  
  
Yosuke had cojones; Yu had to give him that. He just wished his friend would pick his battles a little better.  
  
“Alright, tough guy,” Yosuke said, now that it was just the three of them. “What’s the big idea, showing up here and screwing around like you own the place?”  
  
“What’s… what?” the man said, drawing up one corner of his mouth in confusion.  
  
“Oh, don’t play dumb with us, man. Pulling that jackass stunt on your bike, standing around trying to be cool, schmoozing up our girls like that,” – Yosuke jabbed an accusing finger at his chest – “We know _exactly_ what you’re up to, and we’re telling you now we are _not_ gonna stand for it.”  
  
One of the man’s eyebrows shot up; he’d registered everything Yosuke said but it clearly didn’t make a word of sense to him. Yu almost felt a bit bad for him here – that was a feeling he knew all too well. “It’s a tourer,” he said, gesturing with one hand to the huge black bike. “It makes big turns. Of _course_ I cut it close to you, you were standing in the middle of the lot like a deer in headlights! And – _what_? I wasn’t… _schmoozing up_ anyone. I hadn’t even been off my bike for two minutes when they just came up to me,” he said, in total bewilderment. “ _Who_ are you?”  
  
“Me and him are the bosses here. And that’s all _you_ need to know,” Yosuke said, his voice taking on an almost poisonous edge. Yu tried to shoot him a glance to tone it down, but his friend and the biker had locked eyes like bulls locking horns. “I don’t care how many excuses you wanna make – you’re still on _our_ turf harshing _our_ game. I think you know where I’m going here.”  
  
A look of tired annoyance crossed the man’s face. “Tch – _away_ , I hope. I’m really not in the mood to deal with any more high-school ‘ _death bosses’_ – believe me, I’ve had more than enough of that in my lifetime. Look, I’ll tell you what I told them,” he said, making another one-handed gesture towards the bored-looking girls, “I’m just here to pick someone up. I’ll be gone when the train comes, and you two can go right back to… whatever it is you’re doing here.”  
  
“You think it’s gonna be that easy, huh?!” Yosuke shot back. “You have got _some_ nerve, man. Too bad you’re not even gonna have the chance.” His eyes narrowed, and Yu noticed him ball his hand into a fist at his side.  
  
The man went silent and gave Yosuke a long, analyzing look, as if he wasn’t sure what to say any more. Yu wondered if he should butt in and try to cool the two down, at the risk of Yosuke being pissed at him later. But he hadn’t even formulated the words when the biker just closed his eyes, sighed, and calmly said, “You don’t want to do this.”  
  
And then Yu saw him make a move for his front pocket.  
  
“Alright, Yosuke, that’s enough,” Yu said urgently, taking a quick step forward and throwing out one arm in front of his friend’s chest. Yosuke was so hot under the collar he seemed to have already forgotten the agreement they’d made just a few minutes prior, but Yu was going to make sure he honored it, whether he wanted to or not. “We’re not going to get through to him. Let’s just go,” he said, coolly but forcefully, not letting his eyes off the man or the hand he’d suddenly stopped moving. If he was going to pull something on them, they were _not_ about to stick around to see what it was.  
  
Yosuke turned his head fiercely towards Yu and opened his mouth to protest, but before he could get in a single word, the sound of a woman’s shout rang out across the station.  
  
“Chiiiiiiiiinyaaaaaaaaaaan!!”  
  
All three of them - and more than a few pedestrians - turned to see who was making all the commotion. Almost running down the steps of Okina Station was a young woman, blonde, fair-skinned, and dressed in a _very_ casual outfit that left little to the imagination. Once she’d made it to the landing, she made a beeline for where the three of them stood, weaving around citygoers like she was running an obstacle course on a time limit. When she finally reached the biker, she practically jumped into his arms.  
  
“Tatsuya!” she said cheerfully, throwing her arms around him and pushing her face into his chest.  
  
“Hey, hey, easy there!” he said, staggering backwards from the force of it but quickly steadying himself against his motorcycle. “…You’re late,” he added, and though his voice was admonishing, Yu noticed he was smiling… and a bit pink in the face.  
  
“I know, I know, I’m sorry! It was just, well, first we got off recording super late ‘cause our producer didn’t like how they were mixing the sound, and he just kept making them do it over and over again until they got it how he wanted, so then when he finally let us go I had to run to the station, but I saw I left my bag at the studio so I had to go back, and then I had to run to the station AGAIN, and I almost missed the train, and then when I got ON the train there was this old lady…”  
  
The woman continued to fire off all the day’s misfortunes while the biker – Tatsuya, she’d called him? – listened on with an empathetic but mirthful look on his face, as if he’d heard this story more than a couple times before. Well, Yu thought, that was _one_ way to defuse the situation, as he and Yosuke stood there in stunned silence. He noticed the two girls seemed to have slipped off at some point – not that he could blame them, with how weird this little group kept getting. Yosuke didn’t seem to know what to make of it all; he just stared, moon-eyed, with his mouth slightly ajar like he’d had the words snatched right out of his throat. Yu reached over and gently tapped it shut for him.  
  
“…Well, I hope you weren’t waiting too long,” she finished apologetically, looking up at her partner with big blue puppy-dog eyes.  
  
“Ah, it wasn’t anything too bad. Although I did run into some… _interesting characters_ while you were away,” he replied, staring pointedly at the boys as he did so – though, Yu noticed, he seemed to be deliberately avoiding eye contact with him.  
  
“Hmmmm?” the woman hummed, cocking her head and giving them a once-over of her own. Now that she was up close, Yu could get a better look at her – and she was _exceptionally_ beautiful. She was tall for a woman, though still head and shoulders shorter than Yu and the biker, with long toned legs and a graceful figure. Her face was gentle, cheerful, framed on each side by locks of medium-length blonde hair, and her pale blue eyes sparkled with interest like icy lakes in the sun. And just like the biker, something about her seemed unusually familiar to Yu. She’d mentioned a producer in her story earlier, he remembered – perhaps she was an actress, or an idol, and he’d seen her on a poster somewhere? “Are these friends of yours, Chinyan?”  
  
“Nah,” he answered, closing his eyes gently. “Just a couple of bad boys with nothing better to do.”  
  
“Awww,” she said, in a playfully mocking voice. “You boys weren’t giving _Officer Suou_ here a hard time, were you?”  
  
Yu felt his stomach lurch. _Officer_?  
  
“O-officer!?” Yosuke suddenly echoed, breaking them out of their silent stupor. “Like… like a cop?” he asked nervously, rapidly going white as a sheet as he too realized just what they’d been doing a moment ago. Not scaring off some hot-shot biker who’d stepped onto the wrong man’s territory. _Threatening a police officer._  
  
“C’mon, c’mon, show ‘em!” the woman urged her partner, spurring him on with a few excited elbows to the side. Yu watched him reach into that same front pocket he’d gone for earlier, pull out a narrow black leather case, and flip it open for him and Yosuke to see.  
  
And there it was: a brilliant gold police badge, stamped in the middle with a morning star that seemed to shine as brightly in the light as the sun itself. Above it, behind a clear plastic window, the man’s identification card. “Police Inspector,” Yosuke read under his breath. “Suou… Tatsuya.”  
  
“Yep! Not just your average police officer,” she said proudly, as Suou-san snapped his badge case shut and slid it back into his pocket. “My Chinyan here is the newest big-time inspector with the Kounan PD out in Sumaru!”  
  
Yu was at a loss for words. He flicked his gaze over to Yosuke and found his friend looking right back at him, eyes like saucers, his terrified thoughts written plainly across his face: What the hell had they gotten themselves into? What the hell had Yu _let_ them get themselves into? This wasn’t just some traffic cop they’d been menacing – Suou-san was an inspector for one of the largest prefectural departments in Japan. And the fact that he was so far out from Sumaru City made Yu more than a little uneasy – was this a business trip for him? Would he be in contact with any of the local police departments? If he and Yosuke got taken in for _this_ , so soon after the unfortunate weapons incident at Junes… Dojima-san would have their heads. They’d have to talk their way out of this one, and _fast_.  
  
“W-well, um, I-Inspector, haha,” Yosuke stammered, clearly petrified but trying to laugh it off as if it was all a great joke, “I realize we may, have, uh, said some… less than respectful things, but…”  
  
“We’re very sorry for the trouble we caused you, Suou-san,” Yu said, quickly stepping in for the tongue-tied Yosuke. It was his fault as much as Yosuke’s, if not _more_ so, and he owed it to his partner to help get them out of this mess. “We misjudged your intentions and chose to act rashly and confrontationally. I know there’s nothing I can say to undo what we’ve done, but I feel at the very least you deserve our sincere apologies,” he said, bowing respectfully as he finished his sentence. It was the same kind of mature, obsequious act he’d put on for Dojima-san whenever he got chewed out for something, and more often than not his uncle would let him off with just a slap on the wrist – he could only pray that it would work on Suou-san as well.  
  
“Y-yeah – yeah! We’re really, really sorry, Inspector, we promise we’ll never do it again! S-so, um…” Yosuke paused, looking up at Suou-san guiltily, then violently threw himself into a bow like Yu – “PLEASE DON’T ARREST US WE JUST THOUGHT WE’D LOOK COOL IF WE CHASED YOU OFF BUT WE DIDN’T KNOW YOU WERE A COP AND _IF THIS GOES ON OUR PERMANENT RECORD HIS UNCLE’S GONNA KILL US **AND THEN MY DAD’S GONNA KILL ME AGAIN**_!! I DON’T WANNA DIE, MAN!”  
  
Awesome, Yosuke. Stuck the landing.  
  
“Alright, hey, settle down. If we took kids in just for being young and edgy, they’d have thrown me in the clink a hundred times by the time I was your age. I don’t mind,” Suou-san said, his tone weary but almost paternal in a ‘been there, done that’ sort of way. After a pause that was just long enough to be awkward, he added, “…Uh, so you can get up now.”  
  
Yosuke whipped himself back to a standing position and clasped his hands in front of him, gratefully yelling “Thank you, thank you, _THANK YOU_!! You have _no_ idea how grateful I am, Inspector, my dad probably would’ve skinned me and put me on sale as a rug, I don’t even want to THINK about-”  
  
“Okay, okay! I got it! Relax,” Suou-san said, stopping Yosuke before he could spit out any more of his nightmares.  
  
“You thought chasing Tatsuya off would make you look cool, huh?” the woman asked, curiously tapping her index finger against her chin. “What exactly _are_ you two doing here?”  
  
“W-well,” Yosuke said, shooting a glance at Yu and rubbing the back of his head in embarrassment, “honestly, we had this whole big plan to come here and pick up girls with our motorcycles, but… we had really, I mean, REALLY bad luck the first time we did it. I lost my bike, this guy almost lost… his head,” he said, frowning and gesturing to Yu with his free hand, “it was a mess. But, you know, it was something I’d really wanted to do for a long time, so I thought we’d give it another shot and _make_ it go right this time. It was all going great until – well, until you showed up, Suou-san. I wanted so bad to make our plan work and for it to be worth his time that I kinda just… looked at you and saw red. …Uh, literally and metaphorically, I guess, heh. But… while I hate to say it, it looks like all this plan gets us _up close and personal_ with is trouble. Maybe we really should give it a rest, huh…?” he asked, this time more to Yu than to Suou-san’s partner, his voice tinged with resigned disappointment.  
  
It _was_ true; both this time and the last, they hadn’t seen anything that could be remotely counted as success, unless you counted getting out of it all in one piece. Yu didn’t _really_ want to be here today – nor had he the first time, for that matter – so it would certainly be no skin off his back if they decided to just pack it up and go home together. Still, he couldn’t help but feel a little sad for his friend, seeing him so down like this – the friend he’d come here solely to support. It felt like he was watching Yosuke’s dreams die right in front of him. Juvenile, slightly perverse pipe dreams, but dreams nonetheless.  
  
“Hey, don’t say that! Just look at me and you’ll find proof that it works,” the woman said cheerily, pointing a delicate finger at her face. “Heehee, that’s how my Chinyan hooked me back when we were in high school!”  
  
That seemed to perk Yosuke right up, and he looked expectantly to Suou-san for confirmation. “Huh? Really? You got a girl like _her_ just, doing this?” he asked, a glimmer of hope beginning to sparkle in his eyes.  
  
“I don’t know that I would say _that_ ,” he said, looking at Yosuke with a slightly discomfited expression, as if the question had caught him off guard. “More like she cornered me when I had places to be and wouldn’t let me leave unless I let her ride along.”  
  
“Hey, that’s not true!” the woman told him indignantly. “You were about to go charging off to some _abandoned prison_ without backup, of _course_ I asked you to take me! And I totally would’ve gone anywhere with you before, you just… never asked! You were such a meanie sometimes, Chinyan.”  
  
“Hey, it’s not my fault you were too head over heels to ever say anything to me…”  
  
“Well, it’s not _my_ fault you’re such a studmuffin.”  
  
“ _Lisa_.”  
  
“Heehee! Soooo-rry,” Lisa-san replied, grinning widely and clutching Suou-san tighter despite the death glare he was giving her. His face had gone about as cherry-red as his riding gear.

“Hey, that’s – Yu, that’s genius!” Yosuke said, turning to face his partner with renewed fire in his eyes. “It’s not a problem with _us_ , we’ve just been _looking_ in the wrong place! We’re out here going to the city for girls when we could be doing a _million_ times better just doing this at school! Think about it – how many high school girls are gonna have motorcycles, especially way out in the country like Inaba? We offer them rides and we could be their knights in shining armor, dude! Just look at Suou-san!”  
  
“That’s… the spirit, I guess?” Suou-san said, looking at Yosuke with confused amusement. “…But it probably helped that I had a real bi- Ouch!” Lisa-san silenced him with an elbow to the gut before he could finish the thought.  
  
There was some merit to the idea, Yu thought… although he wasn’t sure how much their instructors would like them loitering around in the schoolyard, or how much attention they’d get with a pair of secondhand scooters, or where they’d be able to take someone that wasn’t walking distance anyway… but it certainly seemed more viable than trying to get lucky showboating around Okina City. And when he looked at how happy Suou-san and Lisa-san seemed to be together, even he couldn’t help but feel a little hopeful.  
  
“Thank you, Lisa-san, Suou-san!” Yosuke said, looking back at them with a bright smile on his face and uncountable fantasies clearly running through his head. “I thought being big bad city boys would get us the ladies, but… I guess we were trying too hard to be something we weren’t, huh?”  
  
Lisa-san smiled and nodded. “It’s not about the motorcycle out there. It’s about the motorcycle in _here_ ,” she said, tapping Suou-san’s chest lightly.  
  
Yosuke seemed to ponder her curious moral for a moment, then looked up to Suou-san with a sort of boyish curiosity. “Hey, Suou-san… do you have any tips?”  
  
“…Uh, tips?” he asked, raising a suspicious eyebrow.  
  
“You know, tips for getting girls to notice you! I figured you’d know, cause, well… you’re _you_ ,” Yosuke said, gesturing demonstratively to the tall, handsome, and very confused Suou-san.  
  
“Getting girls… to notice you,” he said, looking a bit flustered. It was funny, Yu thought; the Inspector had all the makings of a real ladykiller, from the looks to the big bike to the cool, mysterious attitude, but in truth he seemed as innocent as a schoolboy. “If I’m being honest, I never really did any of it on _purpose_ …”  
  
“Heh, if you’re following Tatsuya’s example, it’s a lot of standing around and brooding,” Lisa-san said with a mischievous smile. “Ladies like a guy with something on his mind.”  
  
“Whoa… that simple, huh? Hah, no problem, then! My buddy does enough of that for the both of us!” Yosuke said, flashing a cheerful grin at Yu, who sighed but couldn’t keep down a tiny smile. Did he really brood that much…?  
  
“Sounds like you boys have got it all worked out now, huh?” Lisa-san asked.  
  
“Y-yeah! Thanks again, Lisa-san, Suou-san,” Yosuke repeated, looking proudly at each of them in turn. “Me and Yu have got a whole lot of new plans to make!” Oh, boy.  
  
“Heh. Glad to hear it. Just make sure you stay out of trouble this time,” Suou-san told them, his voice admonishing but kind. He seemed to have a lot of his own experience being young and dumb, and looking at his sharp, weathered face now, Yu almost wondered if he missed it. “If that’s all you need from us, though, we oughta be on our way. I’d like to be where we need to go before dark.”  
  
“Oh, Chinyan. Always so restless…” Lisa-san said dreamily.  
  
“O-oh, right! Yeah, sorry for keeping you, Suou-san. And, um, sorry again for the trouble earlier, heh heh. But – hey, you said you guys were from Sumaru, right? What are you doing all the way out here?” Yosuke asked – Yu had been wondering the same thing.  
  
“Nothing business-related, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Suou-san replied, straightening his riding jacket and dusting off the already immaculate-looking seats of his motorcycle. “Just taking care of a few personal matters.”  
  
“We’re going on a date!” Lisa-san pitched in happily.  
  
“We are taking some time off of our very busy jobs to enjoy the countryside,” he corrected immediately.  
  
“Yeah, okay, Chinyan,” Lisa-san said, then turned to Yu and Yosuke, cupped the side of her mouth with one hand, and loudly whispered, “it’s a _date_.”  
  
“ _Anyway_ ,” Suou-san interjected, his face rapidly going pink again, “we’re still several hours out from where we need to be, so we had _really_ best get going.” He unlocked one of his bike’s massive panniers and pulled out a matching helmet and riding jacket for Lisa-san, which he gingerly helped her into at her behest. After giving her a leg up onto the pillion, he swung a leg over his seat, lifted his own helmet off of its hook, and slid it snug over his head, making sure all of his overlong hair was tucked neatly into place.  
  
Suou-san hooked the kickstand with his boot and flipped it back into place. Now balancing all God knows how many pounds of man and metal with his own body, he grabbed the key between his thumb and forefinger, and paused to give the boys one last look. With only his eyes visible through his clear visor, the power of that soul-piercing stare of his seemed magnified a hundredfold. Yu wondered just what it was he could see with them – those deep, dark, infinitely wise eyes, looking forever through him but not once _at_ him.  
  
But in the end, all he said to them was, “Stay safe. …And, heh, good luck, I guess.” And the push of a button, Suou-san’s heavy metal behemoth roared to life again, the thunderous vibration of its engine filling every inch of Yu’s chest like a frenetic second heartbeat.  
  
“Don’t give up!” Lisa-san shouted, her encouraging voice rising like warsong over the mechanical cacophony. “You’re gonna make some girl really happy some day.”  
  
“Yeah!” Yosuke yelled back, grabbing Yu’s wrist and walking a few feet back to get out of their way – they didn’t need a repeat of Suou-san’s entrance, that was for sure. “We won’t let you down!”  
  
Yu wasn’t ready for them to leave just yet, though – something was still nagging at his mind. That sensation he’d felt when he met Suou-san’s eyes earlier, he was sure of it now: it was another Persona reaching out for him, trying to _tell_ him something he just couldn’t make out. It was a heartbreaking voice, despondent, _pained_ , and not knowing _why_ , let alone how this all was even possible, was very nearly driving him mad. If Suou-san left now, Yu might never find that answer.  
  
But for reasons he couldn’t begin to guess at, Suou-san seemed to be refusing him – he’d made _very_ sure not to look Yu directly in the eye since it had happened, and every glance in his direction felt tinged with confusion, almost _suspicion_. If Yu wanted to make that connection again, he’d have to do it himself. So, improbable though it seemed, he began to channel every bit of mental energy he could into the center of his consciousness, merging a million rambling streams into one mighty waterfall - urging, begging Izanagi to reach out and take hold of the answers that lay just outside their grasp.  
  
But it didn’t seem to be working. With a strong kick against the asphalt, Suou-san deftly pushed his motorcycle backwards and cut it to one side, swinging it in a wide arc that left him now perfectly parallel to the road. Yosuke stood next to Yu, waving excitedly to the couple as Suou-san poised himself to gun it. He turned briefly to Lisa-san, who gave him an assenting nod, then twisted the throttle wide open, sending the bike tearing forward with a deafening roar…  
  
_Wait_ , Yu called out, his voice rising desperately out of the torrent raging deep in his mind. _Don’t go!  
  
_…and as he passed them, for but a single instant, he caught Yu’s eye.  
  
Immediately his mind burst into an infinite mandala of colors, shapes, sounds, emotions; an uncountable number of indescribable things, flying through him – no, _into_ him – too fast for him to register. It was an exhilarating feeling, intoxicating almost, unlike anything he’d ever experienced before – all the energy of another life, another _world_ being funneled directly into his brain. He could hardly breathe, and he felt as if his heart would give out any moment.  
  
And in the next second it was all gone, swallowed by a blinding, pure-white light. For a moment, Yu feared all his overloaded neurons might have died – but then, deep in the center of the vast white sea, he felt the stirrings of something immensely powerful. He focused hard on it, struggling to make out its image in the impenetrable wall of light, and soon that familiar numb sensation began to fill his empty mind. A Persona – the same one he’d made such fleeting contact with earlier. He channeled his energy into Izanagi, compelling him to reach out towards it – and then, gently, he felt something take hold of his Persona’s hand.  
  
The smothering curtain of light blew away like dust lifted by the wind, revealing, in the midst of it all, a Persona of unrivaled majesty. The Sun. Apollo. He must have been Suou-san’s.  
  
He spoke again, and this time Yu could hear him as clearly as if it was his own voice. “Fear not the darkness that veils your path,” he said, his voice reverberating through Yu’s skull, seeming to come from every direction at once. “I have conquered it in my time, and I trust you shall too. May you never lose sight of the light that guides you.”  
  
Yu felt a resonance deep inside Izanagi’s heart – no, inside his own heart – as he looked long and hard into Apollo’s wise blue eyes, framed by cracks and scars and all manner of mementos from fierce battles long past. So Suou-san had gone through the same trials as Yu when he was young – just an average high school kid, thrust suddenly into an upside-down world, forced to fight tooth and nail for his own justice. He could tell, looking at Apollo’s battered but still-proud form, hearing his profound sadness mingled with so much hope, that what Suou-san had been through was something far beyond his imagining. Infinitely, incomparably sad, like nothing Yu had or ever would experience. But even if he could never fully realize Suou-san’s pain, Yu felt that somehow, in that moment, he understood.  
  
And then it was gone. Yu had snapped back to reality, standing there in the parking lot next to Yosuke, still fervently waving, watching Suou-san and Lisa-san disappear around a street corner. It was like nothing had happened at all.  
  
“Man… talk about a lucky break, huh, partner?” Yosuke asked, sighing and letting his tired arm finally fall to his side. “Heh, when she told us he was a _cop_ , I really didn’t think we were getting out of that one! I gotta thank you for that… and, well, apologize for taking it so far in the first place. I really wanted today to go right, you know, but… I shouldn’t have been so stubborn about it. You saved my ass back there, man. _More_ than once!”  
  
“…Yeah,” was all Yu could manage. His head still seemed to be swimming from _whatever_ it was he’d shared with Suou-san, and it was taking him more effort than he wanted to admit just to stay standing. He wasn’t sure exactly what had happened, and already his memory of it was fading fast like he’d just woken up from a dream. But one thing he knew for certain was that what Apollo – no, Suou-san - had told him was something deeply personal, emotional… hopeful. A message of faith and encouragement, from one Leader to another. If he ever saw the man again, Yu thought, he would have to thank him.  
  
“Hey, you alright there, buddy?” Yosuke asked, leaning forward and waving a hand in front of Yu’s glazed eyes. “That’s even less words than usual.”  
  
“Huh? Oh – yeah, just… thinking,” Yu replied, the fog in his head starting to clear. It wasn’t _un_ true.  
  
“Ohhh, _I_ get it,” Yosuke said, an up-to-no-good smirk quickly spreading across his face. “You’re already thinking up ideas for our _new_ up close and personal plan, huh? Well, there’s no point in standing around here to do it – why don’t we just pack it up and go back to Junes, and you can tell me about it when we get there!”  
  
And he would _definitely_ have to thank him for that.


End file.
